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3.71 AVERAGE
3.71 AVERAGE
A thoughtful and thought-provoking book about "counterculture," what it means, and what it could mean. The notion expressed in the title that the world can't be fixed is an interesting one and there's a lot to this discussion to digest, but sometimes it seems a bit questioning and scattered without offering much in the ways of solutions. Interesting food for thought, though.
informative
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
After reading this, I wrote a letter to send to Curtis White but couldn't figure out how to get it to him. So, here it is. I'll just call it an "open letter" now:
Greetings.
My name is Yupa. I’m writing to you regarding your book, Living in a World That Can’t Be Fixed. I became aware of you and your books upon seeing one listed in the notes for “Fandom: Identities and Communities in a Mediated World, 2nd edition”.
I want to write to you about the possibilities and difficulties of counterculture. As someone who rejects this society and wants to life to look very different, I have spent time think about this.
I’ve observed that rejection of the normative culture or form of life is no longer fashionable, but “political awareness” seems to be increasing. In the lingo of the Sixties (which I’m probably butchering), everyone is a politico rather than a dropout, even the radicals who previously tried mixing the two.
I’ll admit that “normative culture” is an imprecise idea. For the sake of keeping this letter short, I’m basically referring to elements of the society that could not exist if there was no state or capitalism. So, I view compulsory labor and everything that rests on it as part of the normative culture.
I don’t believe computers, automobiles, and extensive division of labor would exist in a sustainable society. If there was no rent to pay or cops to push us around, I doubt people would do most of the labor to keep producing these things. So, I imagine a counterculture trying to build a life with these ideas in mind.
It doesn’t seem like people my age feel the same except for some anarchists. Even the social struggles that erupt now are in opposition to mistreatment within this society. They do not call for a new way of life. It doesn’t seem like people dislike the world now, they just don’t want to be excluded from it. This is understandable of course. Nobody should be killed by police or subject to premature death and misery the way marginalized people are. But I am curious why there is so little rejection of the society from the root, and I believe this reason is related to the dearth of counterculture.
You wrote that younger people don’t want to write code for Google. In my experience, that’s not true, even among those not in tech. People my age are stoked to learn coding because it’s both a marketable skill and gives them a sense of power. Being able to code mimics the feeling of creating something in the real world. I’ve heard people jokingly refer to coding as their magical power.
Though radicals and progressives don’t like Google, I think most people do. Or, if they don’t like it, they never say anything and still use its search engine despite plenty of alternatives. Besides that specific example, I’m not seeing the anti-work critique offered by the Situationists and Bob Black embodied among most peers. Sure, liberals want Amazon and McDonalds workers to be unionized, but there’s not a glimpse of opposition to work itself except among the “underclass” who already lack prospects.
Additionally, professional work culture has changed. Work is increasingly team-based, which means that slacking and other forms of resistance are seen as harmful to one’s co-workers and not the bosses. Hierarchies are still there, but middle management becomes less of a thing as time moves on. At my job, I have a “team leader” who essentially bottom-lines that things get done, but we are treated as autonomous people who take work initiatives as we see fit. They assume we self-police rather than need orders given to us all the time. While I get that most work isn’t like this, I think this transformation of work culture for professionals makes them feel more autonomous and less alienated at work.
Moving on to leisure time, the various social media platforms and contemporary forms of entertainment (Netflix, podcasts, YouTube, video games) meets people’s needs in ways that the culture probably did not in the Sixties. For one, there is constant amusement and entertainment. There is a flood of memes, videos, and other content to keep one occupied at all times and in many contexts. The culture is no longer boring the way the Situationists described it.
Another reason people don’t turn away from entertainment media is how “woke” everything is becoming. More people see themselves in the people on TV and in movies and are thus less alienated from it. Additionally, The Sopranos and The Wire ushered in an era of “Good TV” where the medium is more reputable than ever before. The only thing about TV that people are dissatisfied with now is that they’ll never have enough time to watch everything they want to!
YouTube, reddit, and social media generally offer opportunities for people to have discourse, however impoverished it might be. And, given how disconnected and atomized this society had become at the turn of the century, the internet is seen as gifting us with human connection, especially among marginalized people. Even to radicals I have to explain there are more options for life than this social media hellscape or isolated Nineties ennui.
Turning to the economy, I think its financialization discourages people from considering dropping out. The welfare state has been gutted and people get by with debt now, which enslaves them to work. I know my student loans are only reason I am working full-time at the moment. I think people are less thinking of how to get free and more how to get debt-free, which means they embrace work.
The cost of real estate is also a hindrance if we’re talking about living off the land. During the Great Recession, it was easy for me to live in a city with a bunch of friends in a house where most didn’t work. Now, housing prices have skyrocketed. This means people have more pressure to work full-time and land higher-paying jobs. Looking at past subcultures in contrast: the German Autonomen and NYC Lower East Side squatters in the eighties and nineties thrived when real estate prices were low and urban vacancy was high. (Discovering that a real estate market crash took place in the late Eighties gave me a new context to appreciate Linklater’s 1990 film “Slacker”)
It’s possible that, with the rich and middle-class flocking to the cities, some suburbs will see falling home values, and thus more vacancy and affordable rent. But since houses are many people’s primary asset, I think lingering homeowners will resist this pretty hard. Also, it’d be difficult to get away with experimental living there due to zoning regulations and more uptight neighbors.
Rural areas host possibilities but if there are no urban enclaves for people to meet and develop ideas and practices, I don’t see an actual counterculture developing. Or, if it does, it will probably involve the internet to connect like-minded countercultural dropouts. Personally, I would only want to live rurally only if it was relatively close to a city, since I can imagine going nuts only being around the same group of friends.
Another impediment to counterculture is how neoliberalism affirms people’s hobbies and interests in a way that I don’t think society did in the Sixties. People can be and look as kooky as we want now as long as we work and stay connected to the machine through phones and social media. If anything, society now encourages people to speak up constantly and “be ourselves.” With the internet, we live in an attention economy where everyone is trying to be noticed the most. It seems like, in the Sixties, people were discouraged from self-expression, which is partially what the counterculture reacted against.
Now, I’m no cheerleader for neoliberalism’s promises of individual freedom. They are not only limited, they actually produce a new, more insidious conformity. We can express ourselves, sure, but we become irrelevant, lonely, possibly without a job, and out-of-touch with our peers unless we have smartphones and social media. This society nudges us into conforming and using these technologies. The more invasive these technologies become, the more our activities are logged and monitored, creating a panoptic effect at minimum. The more connected we are, the more invasive the systems of control become. For example, when I have my phone on me at all times, my boss can always reach me. I know all that, I’m just pointing out the ways that culture preempts people from looking for something new.
All of this is to say, I agree with your call for counterculture, but there are barriers. Hopefully not insurmountable ones. Since you were around in the Sixties, I’m curious what you make of all of this.
Thanks,
Yupa
Greetings.
My name is Yupa. I’m writing to you regarding your book, Living in a World That Can’t Be Fixed. I became aware of you and your books upon seeing one listed in the notes for “Fandom: Identities and Communities in a Mediated World, 2nd edition”.
I want to write to you about the possibilities and difficulties of counterculture. As someone who rejects this society and wants to life to look very different, I have spent time think about this.
I’ve observed that rejection of the normative culture or form of life is no longer fashionable, but “political awareness” seems to be increasing. In the lingo of the Sixties (which I’m probably butchering), everyone is a politico rather than a dropout, even the radicals who previously tried mixing the two.
I’ll admit that “normative culture” is an imprecise idea. For the sake of keeping this letter short, I’m basically referring to elements of the society that could not exist if there was no state or capitalism. So, I view compulsory labor and everything that rests on it as part of the normative culture.
I don’t believe computers, automobiles, and extensive division of labor would exist in a sustainable society. If there was no rent to pay or cops to push us around, I doubt people would do most of the labor to keep producing these things. So, I imagine a counterculture trying to build a life with these ideas in mind.
It doesn’t seem like people my age feel the same except for some anarchists. Even the social struggles that erupt now are in opposition to mistreatment within this society. They do not call for a new way of life. It doesn’t seem like people dislike the world now, they just don’t want to be excluded from it. This is understandable of course. Nobody should be killed by police or subject to premature death and misery the way marginalized people are. But I am curious why there is so little rejection of the society from the root, and I believe this reason is related to the dearth of counterculture.
You wrote that younger people don’t want to write code for Google. In my experience, that’s not true, even among those not in tech. People my age are stoked to learn coding because it’s both a marketable skill and gives them a sense of power. Being able to code mimics the feeling of creating something in the real world. I’ve heard people jokingly refer to coding as their magical power.
Though radicals and progressives don’t like Google, I think most people do. Or, if they don’t like it, they never say anything and still use its search engine despite plenty of alternatives. Besides that specific example, I’m not seeing the anti-work critique offered by the Situationists and Bob Black embodied among most peers. Sure, liberals want Amazon and McDonalds workers to be unionized, but there’s not a glimpse of opposition to work itself except among the “underclass” who already lack prospects.
Additionally, professional work culture has changed. Work is increasingly team-based, which means that slacking and other forms of resistance are seen as harmful to one’s co-workers and not the bosses. Hierarchies are still there, but middle management becomes less of a thing as time moves on. At my job, I have a “team leader” who essentially bottom-lines that things get done, but we are treated as autonomous people who take work initiatives as we see fit. They assume we self-police rather than need orders given to us all the time. While I get that most work isn’t like this, I think this transformation of work culture for professionals makes them feel more autonomous and less alienated at work.
Moving on to leisure time, the various social media platforms and contemporary forms of entertainment (Netflix, podcasts, YouTube, video games) meets people’s needs in ways that the culture probably did not in the Sixties. For one, there is constant amusement and entertainment. There is a flood of memes, videos, and other content to keep one occupied at all times and in many contexts. The culture is no longer boring the way the Situationists described it.
Another reason people don’t turn away from entertainment media is how “woke” everything is becoming. More people see themselves in the people on TV and in movies and are thus less alienated from it. Additionally, The Sopranos and The Wire ushered in an era of “Good TV” where the medium is more reputable than ever before. The only thing about TV that people are dissatisfied with now is that they’ll never have enough time to watch everything they want to!
YouTube, reddit, and social media generally offer opportunities for people to have discourse, however impoverished it might be. And, given how disconnected and atomized this society had become at the turn of the century, the internet is seen as gifting us with human connection, especially among marginalized people. Even to radicals I have to explain there are more options for life than this social media hellscape or isolated Nineties ennui.
Turning to the economy, I think its financialization discourages people from considering dropping out. The welfare state has been gutted and people get by with debt now, which enslaves them to work. I know my student loans are only reason I am working full-time at the moment. I think people are less thinking of how to get free and more how to get debt-free, which means they embrace work.
The cost of real estate is also a hindrance if we’re talking about living off the land. During the Great Recession, it was easy for me to live in a city with a bunch of friends in a house where most didn’t work. Now, housing prices have skyrocketed. This means people have more pressure to work full-time and land higher-paying jobs. Looking at past subcultures in contrast: the German Autonomen and NYC Lower East Side squatters in the eighties and nineties thrived when real estate prices were low and urban vacancy was high. (Discovering that a real estate market crash took place in the late Eighties gave me a new context to appreciate Linklater’s 1990 film “Slacker”)
It’s possible that, with the rich and middle-class flocking to the cities, some suburbs will see falling home values, and thus more vacancy and affordable rent. But since houses are many people’s primary asset, I think lingering homeowners will resist this pretty hard. Also, it’d be difficult to get away with experimental living there due to zoning regulations and more uptight neighbors.
Rural areas host possibilities but if there are no urban enclaves for people to meet and develop ideas and practices, I don’t see an actual counterculture developing. Or, if it does, it will probably involve the internet to connect like-minded countercultural dropouts. Personally, I would only want to live rurally only if it was relatively close to a city, since I can imagine going nuts only being around the same group of friends.
Another impediment to counterculture is how neoliberalism affirms people’s hobbies and interests in a way that I don’t think society did in the Sixties. People can be and look as kooky as we want now as long as we work and stay connected to the machine through phones and social media. If anything, society now encourages people to speak up constantly and “be ourselves.” With the internet, we live in an attention economy where everyone is trying to be noticed the most. It seems like, in the Sixties, people were discouraged from self-expression, which is partially what the counterculture reacted against.
Now, I’m no cheerleader for neoliberalism’s promises of individual freedom. They are not only limited, they actually produce a new, more insidious conformity. We can express ourselves, sure, but we become irrelevant, lonely, possibly without a job, and out-of-touch with our peers unless we have smartphones and social media. This society nudges us into conforming and using these technologies. The more invasive these technologies become, the more our activities are logged and monitored, creating a panoptic effect at minimum. The more connected we are, the more invasive the systems of control become. For example, when I have my phone on me at all times, my boss can always reach me. I know all that, I’m just pointing out the ways that culture preempts people from looking for something new.
All of this is to say, I agree with your call for counterculture, but there are barriers. Hopefully not insurmountable ones. Since you were around in the Sixties, I’m curious what you make of all of this.
Thanks,
Yupa
The title is bleak, almost makes you want to put it down before you even pick it up. But as a self-proclaimed counter-culturalist, White wants to convey from the get-go that our mechanisms of addressing mounting disagreement in an increasingly fractured and factioned society is not to appeal to people's better sense, or to scream more loudly, or to even risk over-platforming or over-ridiculing anybody. Instead he makes a case that we should devote ourselves to a counter-culture movement that is creative and that is alternative. That while we do exist in a system we all know is messed up and broken, that we should do our best to provide alternatives as a means of swaying opinion, or at the minimum not actively (or even passively) buy into the system hook, line, and sinker. Far from a field guide of how to do that, he makes a lot of astute points and observations of how art and lifestyle in counter-culture has become too appropriated, and how our inherent greediness for comfort and homeostasis-plus-one has made us blind to what should rightfully outrage us as humans. I think the one of the main reasons I didn't rate this higher, and this was mentioned on other reviews, is a section where he outlines types of stupidity that rein supreme (sacrificial stupid, transcendant stupid, the conveniently and inconveniently stupid). It's tongue in cheek, and nobody escapes the stupid moniker, but in an otherwise fairly even-handed and incising but otherwise non-judgmental approach to a heavy topic, this was jarringly disparaging. Short of that I think it's a good read to stimulate thinking, I'd recommend
Flannery O’Connor’s character Misfit proclaims, “She would have been a good woman if there had been someone there to shoot her every minute of her life.” White applies this characterization to the “inconveniently stupid” among us today. Read the short stories and the social criticism, and draw parallels of your own.
***
“In capitalist culture life does not live.” —TA
What humans aspire to is the pleasure of homeostasis.
Consider this dystopian vision. We get the Guaranteed Minimum Income we’re all supposed to want, and the economy then looks like this: the oligarchs take the profits through prodigious monopoly rents; robots do most of the work; the world is awash with cheap consumer goods; and we superseded humans have the privilege of paying for those goods with free money.
How do I remain rich even after the end of money and a habitable planet?
“One must think like a hero to behave like a merely decent human being.” —MA
“Delusion will last until it is about to become fatal, at which point an onset of sanity is certain.” —JKG
***
“In capitalist culture life does not live.” —TA
What humans aspire to is the pleasure of homeostasis.
Consider this dystopian vision. We get the Guaranteed Minimum Income we’re all supposed to want, and the economy then looks like this: the oligarchs take the profits through prodigious monopoly rents; robots do most of the work; the world is awash with cheap consumer goods; and we superseded humans have the privilege of paying for those goods with free money.
How do I remain rich even after the end of money and a habitable planet?
“One must think like a hero to behave like a merely decent human being.” —MA
“Delusion will last until it is about to become fatal, at which point an onset of sanity is certain.” —JKG